Apple: $300 Or Less, Not $1,000 Or More
The Market Ticker ® - Commentary on The Capital Markets
Posted 2012-04-03 12:18
by Karl Denninger
in Market Musings
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Apple: $300 Or Less, Not $1,000 Or More
 

And maybe $100 or less.

C'mon guys, where's your critical thinking skills.

The lapping up of the Apple lovefest, fanboi hyperbolic chart mavens is disgusting.

And wrong.

And, if you stick with it too long, ruinous to your portfolio.

Let's just be simple about it: Nearly every hyperbolic chart like this ends in a disaster.

In fact, I challenge you find those that have not.

Then there are the amusing predicates (EPS growth estimates) both for the next quarter, this year, and next year.  This year, 59%.  Next year, 13.7%.   That doesn't quite fit with a near-doubling of the stock price does it?

The $1,000 call is a call for a trillion dollar company -- by next year.  Something like 2% of GLOBAL GDP and close to 7% of US GDP?  Really?  You believe that?  If so, you're smoking something.

This is a firm with an operating margin of 34% with a huge percentage of it from hardware.  What's their P/E if that gets cut in half?

You think it won't?  Oh yes it will.  This sort of operating margin always attracts competition.  It is the reason that our operating margin at MCSNet -- a nearly-pure services business -- was one of the most-coveted and secret numbers we had.  Nobody heard that number in general circulation because it would have immediately drawn people to try to figure out how we were doing it, to be immediately followed by someone forcing us to lower prices in order to keep customers, thereby destroying it.

There is no way to prevent this from happening folks, especially as you grow larger, except through attempted monopoly control of a market or other unlawful acts.  If you do not engage in those acts then someone will be willing to do what you do at half your margin and the entire premise of your alleged stock price disappears.  And if you do engage in them then you will eventually be stopped, as someone will sue or prosecute.

Oh sure, it takes a while, especially at this scale, for competitors to figure it out and a few of them will try and "miss" before you get tagged.  That's to be expected; instant success is not likely in a situation like this.

But ultimate success is assured as the prize is too big and the idea of a company selling at 4.5 times sales and more than 6 times book value while turning a 34% operating margin is too juicy to resist.

They're going to get attacked and will ultimately lose.

So how do you get to $1,000 first?  You try to suck people in.  You blow bubbles.  You ignore the law of large numbers and the fact that nobody with resources sits back and watches a competitor sell hardware at a 34% operating margin without trying to eat their lunch, breakfast and dinner.  You downplay or outright dismiss these facts and point to a stock chart that has gone hyperbolic and claim that "it's different this time!"  And you use hot money and leverage to do it; as price rises you simply buy more using your freed-up margin doubling into the gains.

This is all good and wonderful right?

No it's not. 

It never is.

Mark this post folks.  Hyperbolic charts look great and are exhilarating, but until you sell the money is not yours and when the selling starts what went up will come down twice as fast -- or faster.

When you trade on buzz it's because you're drunk.  When you double into levered positions and the entire market is one gigantic levered position right now you're really asking for it as when, not if, the margin selling starts it doesn't stop because the leverage multiplies losses exactly as it does (paper) gains and eventually the margin clerk wants your house.

This stock is going to come back to earth and when it does the entire market will come apart with it.

Tell me why I have internals in the market that look like this right now on the Nasdaq 100?

 by genesis

Capital flows positive on a 34/65 day with down volume 3:1 over up volume?  People buying puts like no tomorrow on the advancers, and yet who are the advancers?  Apple, primarily, and when one looks at market cap and thus capital flow, almost-exclusively!

Why does the chart of the market now, and Apple in particular:

.....look like this -- and does anyone remember what came next?

This is a massive, outrageous bubble.  Trees do not grow to the sky.

You're not dumb enough to get sucked in again, right? 

Or are you?

"Sold to you."

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User Info Apple: $300 Or Less, Not $1,000 Or More in forum [Market-Ticker]
Frankschoenburg
Posts: 178
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Time to short? LEAP put? Stay the **** away?
Marvinmartian
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Pasadena, CA
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I'm annoyed that Apple has announced OSX version 10.8, because I have not yet transitioned from OSX 10.6. Until now, major releases were every other year, when 10.8 comes out it will be about a year after 10.7.

They will stop supporting 10.6 with new security patches once 10.8 is released to the world.

OSX v10.6 is the last version of OSX that supports emulation of ppc legacy apps. I still have legacy apps that will never be ported from the ppc architecture, and documents that require those apps. The most important is Appleworks 6; its drawing capability is nowhere to be found from Apple.

As I encounter them, I'm making pdf files for referring to those documents, but I'll probably never "freeze" all of them.

At this time, I think I'm going to make a version of VirtualBox that let me run Appleworks inside 10.6 Snow Leopard inside the virtual machine.
Dmj625
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I received an iPad as a gift just this past weekend. It is very nice. However, what stuck me immediately is that it is not materially different than the Kindle Fire that I bought for my children for 1/3 of the price. If anything, I find the form factor of the Kindle to be more appealing as a reader.

Sure the iPad has a ton more storage for music and pictures, but it size makes it inconveinent as an MP3 player or camera. I suspect that once the "new" wears off I will use it mostly for web browsing and e-mail. Kinda pricey for that, huh?

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Crzymorse
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My feeling is if they succeed in becoming a digital hub with their family of consumer electronics then they are well on their way with iTV, icloud, tablets and phones. They have a shot at 1% of world GDP. The interconnectivity of these devices makes life much easier to use for the majority of users and much harder to migrate off to somebody elses digital hub.

Google is going to give them a run, the driverless car can change the productivty of the country profoundly.
Docj
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I'm far less interested in the parabolic move of iDump than I am in trying to figure-out who it is that is eventually going to "eat their lunch", as it were. I had hoped it was going to be RIM, but that now seems highly unlikely. And as the owner of a 'droid I can tell you I'm spectacularly underwhelmed there as well.

And don't even get me started on Micro$oft.

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Delapaz
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Those 34% hardware margins will not survive a Yuan-Dollar rebalance.

Another way to put it: 34% hardware margins depend on the Chinese buying and continuing to buy US paper fiat forever.

But hey, it's a nice party while the alcohol keeps flowing.
Spanktron9
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While I have questioned AAPL's future since $250, I believe the launch of the iPhone5/4G will spur a MASSIVE upgrade cycle. How many 10s of millions of iPhones are out there now? They are ALL salivating for the new hotness and a 4G platform. I see AAPL hitting $700 easily during this frenzy, with a potentially sharp pullback to follow.

/Not investment advice.

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Novid
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Quote:
My feeling is if they succeed in becoming a digital hub with their family of consumer electronics then they are well on their way with iTV, icloud, tablets and phones. They have a shot at 1% of world GDP. The interconnectivity of these devices makes life much easier to use for the majority of users and much harder to migrate off to somebody elses digital hub.

Google is going to give them a run, the driverless car can change the productivty of the country profoundly.


yall got to love this. IT DOESNT matter if they even reach that stage. Somebody says Apple is worth 1,000 a share is smoking the greatest ganja on earth. Even i, who isnt in the market and more into the socitial ramafications of how the market effects people... will tell you that not even the content creators of the TV shows that are on the Apple store - arent even worth 30 bucks a share. So how the **** Apple that special?


Take Sony. They make master tape players, storage devices, owns a TV studio, Movie Studio, Music Empire (at one time) and video game makers and system. There NO WHERE close to Apple and Apple makes less "usefull" stuff than Sony. How you mark them up to 1,000 a share where as sony only goes for 27!?

Asimov
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Karl: Optimist.

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Jubber
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Well I think I will have to agree with Cramer (for once) here, there will be Apple and there will be Samsung running android, all other competitors, i.e Nokia, Blackberry, Motorola etc will be left by the roadside. The smartphone will/is becoming standard among the populations of the world, in the same way flat screens replaced square televisions.
The tablet market as far as I can see, they basically have a monopoly.

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Genesis
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smiley

Keep dreaming.

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Inkt2002
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Bold prediction. Hope you are right Karl. Even if it comes to fruition though, 300 is still well above the share price that you turned bearish on Apple. Ugh.
Pheenix11
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I love Apple but when you start seeing predictions like this it's time to sell. And I'm not talking about Apple specifically, I'm talking about the entire market. Bernanke and friends have succeeded in blowing yet another bubble with cheap money that will burst and take everything with it. Get ready for Mad Max.
Flappingeagle
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Guys I have a bit of an off-topic question. I've been thinking of purchasing an iPad or similiar item. What do you think is the best deal going if I want to be able to surf the web, handle email and read books as my primary uses of the item? iPad? Kindle Fire? XX?

Thanks;

Flap

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Here are my predictions for everyone to see:
S&P 500 at 320, DOW at 2200, Gold $300/oz, and Corn $2/bu.
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The January 2015 AMZN put at $130 (cost $4.25) will be a winner.
Grashopa
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Quote:

Those 34% hardware margins will not survive a Yuan-Dollar rebalance.


I really don't get why people repeat this without thinking about it. The RMB was devalued about 50% and since 1994 the Chinese have doubled their money supply every 3-4 years. If there are 16+x more RMB in existence today and there is only 3-4x more USD in existence today after a 50% devaluation - don't you think perhaps the RMB should be worth less than it is? Do you really want to hold RMB in your bank account? Of course you can't even hold it now anyway!


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Kypackrat
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$1000 per share is insane. IMHO $500 per share was sky-high, much less whatever it is now. Apple has to correct here, and IMHO it will overcorrect. It will also take the Nasdaq with it when it blows.

I understand why the market is desperate for an Apple: they want actual profits. HP is a zombie lurching towards a chop-shop takeover. Dell is a finance company pushing "fleeces" on hardware. Lenovo is forecasting 3% profit margins. Acer is longingly looking back towards its previous 3% profit margins and is wondering what happened. Samsung hasn't created a single dominant idea, and would be more profitable if it quit wasting its Apple-given profits competing with its best customer. Nokia couldn't find a clue with 4 committees and one supervisory committee of executives (and 5 different OS development teams).

Apple landed right in a perfect storm. Jobs believed in ultimate simplicity. Do it one way, the Right Way (TM). Offer the minimum possible number of choices, and make it easy. It worked for Saturn and for McDonalds. The iPad works because there are 2 choices: wi-fi only or cellular, and then 3 memory choices. For the Apple computers, it's portable or desktop, and then screen size (and processor, but I don't know any consumer that's cared about that for the last 3-5 years). Try ordering a computer from Dell: they have 6 different kinds of computers on the first page, and that's a distinct improvement from the multiples they used to offer.

There is a limit to the "just make it easy" market. Apple can saturate this market, and probably will soon if the economy downturns. Eventually, the cool side will get broken off by some other gee-whiz phone or tablet with a built-in blender and frappachino maker, and the low end will get squeezed by some toy making a $5 profit for their Indian or Chinese manufacturer.

However, $100 a share is silly. Even if we shave off the parabola and say they go 0 growth. They still have a loyal core customer base buying what they produce, and have a lot of profit margin to give. They could live well just supporting their current market for a foreseeable future, barring Apple's new "one more thing".

Karl, you're generating a Cassandra problem here: if you were putting your money where your mouth was the whole way up the parabola, you'd be long past broke. I understand that you have an irrational hatred for all things Jobs, but I think peeing on Jobs' grave would be more emotionally healthy and cathartic than railing against the irrationality of the market on Apple.

IMHO, everything you've ever forecasted about Apple can be applied to BMW and Mercedes equally. They sell luxury brands into a market dominated by low-cost options. Granted, neither has faced Apple's parabolic stock rise recently; but they have the same fundamental position. They both have loyal buyers in markets that traditionally run towards commodity status in bad times. So, why aren't you short BMW or Mercedes?

If I had money to spare, I could be talked into buying Apple at $300. Apple at $100 is IMHO just projection.

Reason: changed to "if the economy downturns"
Genesis
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Quote:
I understand that you have an irrational hatred for all things Jobs,

You're done.

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I don't care if it makes sense -- only if it makes money. -- Me
Bank (n): See scam, fraud and theft. Eat a bankster -- they're low-carb.
What part of "shall not be infringed" was unclear?
Controller
Posts: 66
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North Carolina
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I have to agree, but it's impossible to time. Even Google had a blow off top in 2007. It wasn't as steep, but I saw the same symptoms. It was going up very quickly with virtually no news to support the rise. I sold at 709 and it peaked just a few days later. I haven't played it since and the price hasn't been back up there since. Maybe that was foreshadowing a market drop because that did coincide with the near S&P high.

Puts are way to expensive for me to be interested in, so I'm just going to eat popcorn and watch.
Ihsmta
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Midwest, USA
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I looked really hard at Apple at $27/share and couldn't bring myself to buy as thought they were toast...then Jobs came back. Remember when Micro$oft made the sympathy purchase of Apple Stock? Everyone thought that MS was nuts!

Yep, I'm a moron, but I've still got some money in my pockets.


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"Economists are no different than the prophets of ancient Pompeii who reassured that Mt Vesuvius would never blow. After all, it never had before." Baxter Black, DVM and Cowboy Poet

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Londoncat
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Flap - I don't know about everyone else, but I love the 2 GB 9.7" Le Pan tablet running on Andriod 2.2 (around $200 at Walmart and you can by a microSD card to increase memory up to 32 GB) - or the Le Pan II for around $250 which runs on Andriod 3.2 (Honeycomb) - 8 Gb internal storage and can also be upgraded with a microSD card to 32 GB of storage. Great for surfing the web, games, books, watching videos/movies, etc. Cameras are below average, but I don't need/use the cameras. I bought one of each for the kids 2 months ago and they are terrific - especially for the size and price.

I prefer andriod-based tablets over apple, especially when I can get them for about 1/3 the price. Won't be long before many others are considering price and function over the "coolness" factor.

-------------------
Guys I have a bit of an off-topic question. I've been thinking of purchasing an iPad or similiar item. What do you think is the best deal going if I want to be able to surf the web, handle email and read books as my primary uses of the item? iPad? Kindle Fire? XX?

Thanks;

Flap
Medicdan
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AAPL should be day traded only in my opinion. Shorting this is just as dangerous as going long. At least in the current environment.

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Djloche
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when the spice stops flowing, hardware companies like apple will collapse. apple makes great products, but their parabolic rise is ultimately dependent on slave labor & manufacturing coupled with carrier subsidies and .gov handouts.

i can understand buying apple products, but not their stock.

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Genesis
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The carrier subsidies will wind up killing their model. They're ridiculously outsized compared to the rest of the market; in this regard Apple is EXACTLY like Netflix and will end the same way.

How many iPhones does Apple sell at $600 cash up front each?

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I don't care if it makes sense -- only if it makes money. -- Me
Bank (n): See scam, fraud and theft. Eat a bankster -- they're low-carb.
What part of "shall not be infringed" was unclear?

Ckaminski
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For support ability sake, I would have to say go with the kindle fire. I really like the nook brand, but I don't think much of B&Ns staying power compared to the Amazon juggernaut. Plus it's likely to see continued software updates,csomething that cannot be said (perhaps) about the Walmart specials.

I like my iPad and I like my android Xoom. But I write apps for both. If I had to choose only one... Probably the Xoom - I did buy it first, after all.
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